Hello all,
Its time to do my service to the Digital Storm community by posting the
review of not only the computer itself, but the experience as a whole. This is
my first time doing such a thing, so bear with me, and hopefully all you
prospective buyers out there can learn of few things, or at the very least,
have a few concerns calmed.

If anyone remembers my first few posts here, I originally was looking for a
~$5,000 (didn't end up spending that much!) computer that my company was going to be paying for. Well, things
changed, and I ended up getting a new work computer, which left me still using
my laptop for everything home-based. But, at that point, I had the Digital
Storm â€śdiseaseâ€ť and decided to just pay for it myself, because I was thoroughly
addicted to the idea of getting a new computer at that point. I received the
rig on December 7th, 2010. The
configuration is as follows (minus a few irrelevant things, such as options I
left blank):

I know the most anticipated part of most reviews is the
pictures, so Iâ€™ll get to those, then proceed to break down a few things about
my experience as I whole.

The box, believe everyone who says it is big, because it is.
The FedEx worker didnâ€™t believe me it was actually a computer, lol.

The box is opened, revealing baby boxes.

I finally get to view the rig itself, not so much as a
single scratch or smudge

The rig comes out of the box, it was cold due to the
weather, but it warmed up quick.

The guts, as they came from Digital Storm. Iâ€™ve changed a
couple of things, but this is how it was at birth.

Box 1: Goodies. The binder had all my disks, and the shirt
was just as pictured on the site.

Box 2: Computer intestines, for those of you who doubt that
DS sends you EVERYTHING

The rig in its new spot, under my desk

A more wide-angle view of where it now lives

A few things about the pictures, I know it might not seem
like the case gets much airflow where it is. Normally, that might be correct.
But, I am an *extremely* hot-natured person, so the windows are constantly open
in that little room. Additionally, the location of this old building, is right
across from a huge field. So, wind whips through this room like a bat out of
hades, year round, as I am in a very windy location to start with. In the
summer, the window a/c is only 5ft from the spot. So far, temps are looking
good, though Iâ€™ll move it, come Summer, if needed. Also, for anyone who
noticed, yes, that is a Piggy calendar, my wife got it for me. I have a love of
tiny Pigglets, lol. Also, for me at least, the shirt was larger than expected.
I normally wear Mediums or Larges, so I ordered a Large. Well, even after
washing, its still more of what I wouldconsider an â€śXLâ€ť, I ordered the Gray color, just as an FYI. Your results
may vary.

Now, for the details, Iâ€™ve rated everything on a 1-10 scale,
pretty straightforward.

Digital Storm â€“ Customer Service/Sales/Management: 8/10

The reason Digital Storm doesnâ€™t get a 10/10 from me,
actually has to do with the very beginning stages of my ordering process. It
actually took me over two weeks to get a response from the company, this
includes calling, direct email, and web-forms. I attempted contact every other
day, for around 17 days, before finally getting a response, albeit a short-one.
Now, I understand that Digital Storm was *EXTREMELY* busy at the time, and
likely still is. However, in my opinion, to not even return a customerâ€™s calls/emails,
is unacceptable, without exception. NOW, having said that, once I DID, get in
contact with them, they were EXCELLENT to deal with. It was like, I had to get
through this initial contact dilemma, then after that, everything was responded
to within less than an hour, or no more than 20 hours. So, based on the initial
problems, which actually almost broke the deal, I have to subtract 2 points.
But after that, EVERYTHING, was superb.

Digital Storm â€“ Technical Support 9/10

Iâ€™ve only had to contact them a couple of times, over a
couple of minor things, nothing major. So far, they have contacted me back, the
same day, every time. Normally within a couple of hours, easily, even if it was
later in the day. The reason I took off one point, was because during one
phone-call, I was told flat out, that the way my SSDs was hooked up, was better
than what I wanted to try. When in fact, what I wanted to try was vastly superior.
So, he was wrong, however, he was very courteous and professional and quick to
respond. Despite that one incident, I still have a very high-respect for
Digital Stormâ€™s technical support thus far, far more than any other company Iâ€™ve
dealt with to date.

The Rig Itself â€“ 10/10

This is what really counts, eh? To be brief, the machine is
excellent. Though the argument could be made, that after using a laptop for 3
years, anything would seem better, I can just tell this is a quality build. The
machine boots in about 10 seconds, give or take and Iâ€™ve yet to see a single
hiccup in any game. CS5, any program, loads in about 2 seconds, which is
absoltabously amazing for me. The wiring was exceptionally well done, and
everything was securely in place. Not even a single loose part after transit,
and trust me, I thoroughly checked! I have had no issues that hindered usage of
the machine, at all. Also, have NO DOUBT, that Digital Storm goes out of their
way to provide excellent packaging for the machine, as mentioned, mine was in
mint condition.

The Digital Storm Community â€“ 11/10

If I were to tell someone, why they should buy from Digital
Storm, it would be because of the community. The forums are very active and itâ€™s
a good active, not 100s of pointless posts about nothing. Sales, Management,
and consumer-experts are all active in the forums. They are willing to answer
questions, ranging from something simple, like how to plug in your speakers, to
more advanced things, such as complex BIOS tweaking in regards to overclocking,
etc. The forums are not condescending at all, at least I have never seen them
as such. As far as being helpful, and accessible, Iâ€™ve NEVER found another
vendor who boasted forums that even remotely resembled the caliber of Digital
Stormâ€™s. If youâ€™re a potential customer, I highly recommend you just browse
around for a bit, I almost guarantee you will learn something.

Overall â€“ 9/10

I had trouble getting started with Digital Storm, that is
the ONLY reason this is not a 10/10. I know they are working on improving that,
so it might be much better at this point. In Digital Stormâ€™s defense, I did
order around one of the busiest times of the year. However, as I said before,
after that, every-single-thing, has been excellent, and this is coming from a
lifelong member of the International Pessimists society.

Miscellaneous stuff:

A BIG thanks to the Digital Storm employees, forum members,
and all around "more smarter" people than I: Alex, Sarah, DST4ME, !ender_, justin.kerr,
Dragoonseal, and MagiK. Though others have helped, these few are the ones who
really inspired me to stick with Digital Storm.

In conclusionâ€¦

If you are looking
for a specialty company, devoted to building you a hardcore gaming rig, because
you donâ€™t know how, donâ€™t have the time, or just donâ€™t want to, whichever,
Digital Storm is the way to go. Iâ€™ve used other â€śBoutiqueâ€ť builders in the
past, and none even come close.

Funny thing, I spent so much time obsessing about it getting here, thinking about how I was going to try to raise the overclock, run benchmarks, install tons of games, etc. Now that its actually here, I find myself suddenly so busy I barely get to play with it

The Killer Xeno Pro 6.0 firmware version was claimed by some people at BFN to the forum that it'd be the equivalent of the 2100 so as to keep the Xeno users happy. I've used 6.0 myself, and it didn't save the Xeno for me, going to sell it soon. If you're interested in how it did, well, yes, it gave me about a 5~10 ping boost in games. But the crappy software, and the fact that I really couldn't care less about 5~10 ping boosts online, is making me just want to sell it again.

Once I get around to doing some actual tests with a regime and controls, I'll be sure to share the results.

I'm honestly not expecting a whole lot of improvement, if any, but, I just felt like having an experiment. Best way to spend that amount of money? Probably not, but it will satisfy my curiosity .

So far, from the onboard, to the Killer, I have about a 500kb/s difference on my download speeds, and a 150-175kb/s difference in my upload speeds, via online speed testers (so this is just raw transfer on a high-speed server, not necessarily real-world stuff). My ping is around 30% better. However, I'll need to do some hard testing to see if this is something that is maintained over time.

I don't think I'd recommend spending the money on it, unless you're like me and just want to play with it.

ablahblah, Did you notice anything different outside of the small ping boost with the Xeno?

Thanks, I know its not really new or original, but its the background I use for everything, PC, phone, PS3, etc. Its clean and simple, plus, I'm a HAL 9000 fan. Its also fun seeing people's reactions to all the "eyes" looking back at them from almost everything I own.

It is a contractor for the US Navy. If they would have ended up paying for my home PC, I would have been stuck with my same old work PC. So, I figured it would make more sense to have the productivty-based PC at work, rather than a productivity-based PC at home. Even though I didn't like the thought of that at the time.

Thanks for the response! I chose Mr. Bojangles as a name, largely because I thought it fitted my personality a little better than a more serious name. Also, when I was younger, my father used to listen to the song a lot, call it an ode to him if you will .

I found that one of the wheels shipped with the case was broken, which is a bit of a problem since its under a desk. I tried super-glue which worked, but only partially. I sent Digital Storm customer service an email simply asking if they provided replacements, and they sent out 4 new wheels, at no cost at all to me, without so much as a question asked.

Iâ€™m new to the forum and a bit new to custom PCâ€™s. After 25+ years with Macâ€™s and garden-variety Windows machines Iâ€™m now considering a balls-to-walls workstation, so perhaps this forum will help.

I have a killer 2100, and basically, from the day I turned on my computer, I had my ethernet plugged into the killer 2100, then one day I was getting crashes, plugged my ethernet into my motherboard port, and my internet connection was literally 2x as fast

I saw your review, very nice rig! I personally opted for air-cooling because its what I'm used to. I guess I'm a little old fashioned in that regard

@Saber

Thanks for the input, I definitely think you've came to the right place in regards to getting help. With experience such as yours, I'm sure you'll find that Digital Storm is a competent company worthy of your hard-earned dollar. Like I mentioned in the review, the forums have been a massive help to me. You can just look at my post history, for all my noobish questions, as proof.

@CoressThanks for your experience with the 2100, it definitely does seem to be double-faced card as far as user reviews go. A lot of people seem to be in your boat, with the 2100 actually causing problems. I'm still marginally ahead with the 2100, as far as raw data goes, but I haven't conducted any thorough testing yet, as I'm waiting on the new firmware release which (they claim) is going to fix a lot of issues.

I just figured I would share an additional piece of information for all potential Digital Storm customers. My rig is still running exceptionally well with no issues. I've been in it multiple times, but never as a result of any problems, it was just me tinkering around with the setup or adding something.

Additionally, my friend of 20 years just purchased his own Digital Storm rig after my strong encouragement to do so after I heard he was looking for a new machine.

So in other words 1/2 a year later (with hours of daily use) and the machine is still rocking hard!

Are you asking about the black strip on the desk? That's actually a piece of leather thats slightly imbedded into the desk itself. The desk was a floor model at Office Depot, so I got a really good deal on it.

I figured I would give an update for all potential customers who browse these reviews.

As I mentioned I received my DS rig on December 7th, 2010, so today's date of December 17th, 2011 I am just over a year into ownership. And, my thoughts on the system and Digital Storm after a year? Things are just as good as day 1.

Over the past year I have changed the Processor, but it was NOT because I had problems with the original unit, it was because I won an upgrade at a local university and chose to use it rather than sell it. Other than that, I haven't added or removed anything. I've had no component failures and there's been no perceivable decrease in performance over the past year. I have been in the rig a few times, but that was mainly for minor changes, that had nothing to do with Digital Storm, but rather with me being a little obsessive about certain things

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